Thursday, January 14, 2016

The International Racquetball Tour (IRT) is back in action this weekend with the 2016 New York City Pro-Am on Long Island, New York. Kane Waselenchuk, the #1 IRT player, is gunning to win another event, and everyone else will be looking to stop him.

There are two rounds of action on Thursday before Waselenchuk and the other top 8 IRT players begin play in the Round of 16 on Friday morning. The highlight of the preliminary rounds is a battle between Jose Diaz and Jake Bredenbeck, who played doubles together at last year’s US Open. This will be a replay of the 2015 Pan American Championships final, which Diaz won in two straight games. But in that competition, they were limited to one serve, and Bredenbeck’s drive serve is one of his big weapons. Will the 2 serve rule on the IRT shift the balance to Bredenbeck? It will be fun to see how this one plays out.

IRT #2 Rocky Carson will play the winner of Diaz-Bredenbeck in the 16s, while Waselenchuk will play the winner of Troy Warigon and Alejandro Herrera.

Another match we anticipate to be good is Sebastian Franco versus Andree Parrilla, although Parrilla needs to beat Joe Polazzo to set that up. Then the winner of that will face 4th seed Daniel De La Rosa in a Round of 16 match, which should also be good.

Other Round of 16 matches we anticipate to be good are 3rd seed Alvaro Beltran versus young Bolivian Mario Mercado, Charlie Pratt versus Felipe Camacho, and Jansen Allen against Mauricio Zelada.

The IRT Round of 16 will be streamed live Friday from 10 AM via the IRT Network with the quarterfinals Friday afternoon and evening. The semi-finals are scheduled for 4 PM and 5 PM Saturday with the final on Sunday at 11 AM. All times eastern.